As of 2017, which city in the United States is the most rat infested?

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania topped the list as the most rat infested city in the United States, according to new data provided in 2017. Almost every two years, the government statistical agency known as the American Housing Survey (AHS) conducts an evaluation to paint a picture of key cities with rodent infestation in U.S. homes. The survey asks respondents about their homes, their cities, about public safety issues and their abodes, and about whether they have seen evidence of cockroaches, rats, mice, etc. Signs of rats and their presence are easy to detect. Rats eat and contaminate food, damage real property, and transmit parasites and diseases to other animals and humans.

Also, AHS has asked about the work of the U.S. pest control industry, which at the beginning of 2017 supported 24,000 pest control businesses. The revenue generated by the companies totaled over $12.3 billion at the end of 2016, according to the research firm IBISWorld. (Two publicly traded companies—Rollins, which owns Orkin, and the ServiceMaster Company, based in Memphis, Tennessee—combine for 22 percent of all sales.)

The better data on vermin (rat nuisance) populations now shows that they are a great economic equalizer. They are not just in neighborhoods where houses have broken windows and need a new coat of paint. They have been found in mansions that are filled with rodent droppings in the attic.